Study On The Impact Of Transportation Infrastructure On The Urban Market Potential In China

The Chinese economy is in a critical period of transformation and upgrading,effectively tapping the potential market demand and fully releasing the market potential to lay a solid foundation for promoting high-quality development.As an essential carrier for the spatial flow of factors,it is necessary to explore the impact of transportation infrastructure development on the market potential to enhance foreign trade capacity and promote balanced regional economic development.From the perspective of agglomeration production,transportation infrastructure improves the flow rate of production factors between cities,the efficiency of resource allocation,and the vitality of the market for traded goods.It closes the trade links between core cities and neighboring cities.However,the economic radiation effect triggered by transportation infrastructure construction does not appear equally.The impact on the development conditions of urban trade is characterized by distance decay.Due to the large number of missing values of shipping panel data,the construction of urban passenger and freight level variables,mainly considering three modes of transportation: railroad,foad and water transportation,and the robustness test partly incorporates the development of shipping infrastructure,focusing on the following questions: Is there an impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential? If it exists,what is the mechanism of influence?Does the increase in the level of transportation infrastructure development reduce the gap in market potential between cities? If so,what is the impact path?This paper takes the entire administrative area of prefecture-level and above cities(urban areas,jurisdictional counties,and jurisdictional cities)as observation range.It analyzes the following aspects by constructing an analytical framework of direct impact(impact analysis)-mechanism effect(mechanism analysis)-gap impact(deferred analysis):(1)After visualizing the spatial and temporal characteristics of urban market potential,this paper uses spatial panel models,lag models,and error models to analyze the direct impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential and the optimal impact radius.(2)To study the transmission roles of demand for tradable goods and adequate labor supply in the impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential.(3)To further analyze the heterogeneous impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential and the moderating role of city size,industrial structure,and entrepreneurial dynamics.This paper also uses a threshold model to verify the existence of the non-linear effects of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential.(4)This paper also uses the DID model to investigate the positive effect of high-speed rail opening in alleviating the spatial imbalance of urban market potential.The main findings of this paper are as follows:(1)Spatial correlation characteristics and dynamic evolution of urban market potential.1)The distribution curve of urban market potential shows a slight rightward trend.The center of the distribution curve shows a slight leftward trend each year.The degree of polarization has weakened,and the distribution extensibility has converged over time.The distribution position,distribution pattern,distribution extension,fluctuation amplitude,and polarization characteristics of the urban market potential of the eight comprehensive economic zones differ significantly;2)the spatial gap of the urban market potential of the eight comprehensive economic zones tends to narrow,and the inter-regional gap is the primary source of the overall gap;3)the spatial agglomeration characteristics of urban market potential exist,and the spatial correlation intensity tends to increase after 2011.After that,the power of spatial association is on the rise.(2)The direct impact shows that the development of transportation infrastructure enhances urban market potential and promotes the spillover effect.The conclusion still holds after a series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests.Based on the law of distance decay,this paper verifies that the influence of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential has a gradient change characteristic,and the optimal influence radius is 100～150 km.(3)Mechanism studies show that transportation infrastructure enhances market access for firms,tapping urban market potential to raise demand for tradable goods.Meanwhile,the development of transportation infrastructure provides more job opportunities for the labor force,enhancing the positive spillover effect of human capital and tapping the urban market potential to raise the effective labor supply.(4)The heterogeneity study shows that the improvement of transportation infrastructure development level can reduce the gap in urban market potential and alleviate the spatial imbalance of urban market potential.City size,industrial structure,and innovation level have a moderating role.Based on the moderating effect,this paper analyzes the heterogeneity of transportation infrastructure affecting urban market potential.It verifies the triple threshold moderating effect of enterprise market access,industrial agglomeration,and innovation level.The paper also demonstrates that the impact of high-speed rail on the urban market potential gap is positive from two years before and after the opening of the high-speed rail.The positive effect on the urban market potential gap is most apparent in the year of opening.The innovations of this paper are as follows:(1)The analysis framework of urban market potential is constructed,and the mechanisms of "transportation infrastructure—demand for tradable goods—urban market potential",and "transportation infrastructure—efficient labor input—urban market potential" are proposed,which remedy the shortcomings of existing theoretical mechanisms and empirical studies.(2)The non-linear effect of transportation infrastructure on the urban market potential is revealed and verified.A threshold model is introduced to test the heterogeneity of the impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential.The empirical study is enriched from the perspective that the opening of high-speed rail can effectively alleviate the spatial imbalance of urban market potential.(3)Explains the mechanism of the impact of urban roads on urban market potential,and extends the analysis of transportation infrastructure from inter-city to intra-city.The effect of intra-city transportation infrastructure on urban market potential is considered in the theoretical modeling and empirical study,enriching the empirical analysis of the impact of transportation infrastructure on urban market potential.(4)Constructed the indicators for measuring urban market potential.From the perspectives of industry competition,city openness,enterprise market access,and transportation cost differences,the traditional market potential indicators were revised,and market potential measurement indicators were constructed in line with the actual economic development of urban,which enhanced the practicality of market potential indicators.